On Tuesday evening, we invited DanS and Justin over for a meal and a bit of chill out time. With Justin due to escape Kazakhstan very soon, and Lara and the kids (as in the rest of DanS’s family) still away on a holiday, it seemed like a good time to fill up with food, talk, empty the cupboards of beer and drive and just spend a bit of time together without a bar’s sound system making conversation nigh on impossible without BSL 🙂
We decided upon burritos (I discovered that tortillas with food inside, wrapped up, can be called burritos, as not all burritos have a hard shell) as a) I wanted something tasty and b) everyone else is a lot less picky with their food. Given that we could take out pick from home cooked battered chicken, Heinz baked beans, cheese, peppers, chillis, tomatoes and of course a bit of ketchup and mayo, this seemed the easiest way for everyone to have exactly what they wanted for dinner. Justin was working late, so the rest of us ate and drank until it was time for Tim and Anna to be made ready for bed, at which point Justin arrived. Irina kindly fried up some more chicken, and we all sat round the table enjoying more food (and perhaps a little more alcohol 🙂 ).
Once the food was out of the way, the question of entertainment reared it’s head. I suggested the xbox, as it has been gathering dust for months now – Irina isn’t a gamer, and once the kids are in bed most days, if we have spare time, we try to find something we would both like to watch. Anyway, I remembered that the console wasn’t actually turning on last time I checked, so after triple checking all the connecting leads were OK, and then unplugging everything, leaving just power and the HDMI cable, there was still no activity. After applying the engineer’s touch (short sharp shock to the box), it kicked into life. We decided to use the kinect, and to play Kinect Sports after a little driving fun.
You can see a montage of our sessions below – sorry about the low quality, I am sure last year’s clips were better. I’ve cleaned the lenses since just in case. Anyway, first we have Dan and Irina – I can’t remember who won overall. Dan is VERY keen to point out he didn’t lose at the boxing mini game.
Justin and Me – This was a draw, however given that Justin hadn’t ever played this game before, I suspect any subsequent rematches would not end as flatteringly for me. Especially if the javelin game was involved (I never learn it would seem, as I once again pulled some random muscle/ligament type thing in my arm when over-exerting a virtual throw of the javelin, as I did last year)!
Jul 19 2012
Friends And Injuries
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Apr 19 2012
Agreeing With Happy Events
On Saturday we are having a few friends over to our flat for a birthday celebration. Here in Kazakhstan, people tend not to celebrate such events prior to the actual date, and as on the 20th itself I’m going to be checking out the American Bar & Grill restaurant (located where TGI Friday was on Respublika Avenue (they are apparently both owned by the same parent company/franchise co-ordinator)) with Irina, Tim, Anna and Ira’s parents, the 21st was the next closest date when people would likely be free.
Friends who have visited on such occasions before can probably guess what will be served when we all sit down to eat – various deep fried meat products, chips (there is a real shortage of other potato based deep fried garnishes in local supermarkets right now) and baked beans. Irina was concerned that on a person’s birthday celebration, they shouldn’t be doing the cooking, but we reached an agreement where things I don’t normally cook or enjoy would be handled by her, like salad or cups of tea, where as alcohol, unhealthy but tasty food and audio/video entertainment would be sorted by me. This way, I am happy to be cooking things that I see as a treat, Irina is happy that guests won’t be floating on a sea of sunflower oil all night, and we will both be happy that the compromise reached is one agreeable to all involved.
I have scoured local shops for the required ingredients to make a good few litres of Long Island Iced Tea (just need to add the lemon juice and coke (many thanks to Justin, for the heads up on a possible location for an orange liqueur)), stockpiled various chicken-themed main courses, discovered that chips are, for some reason, the only potato-based garnish that are currently stocked locally & ensured the music and video collection are up to scratch. The friends coming are a mix of ex-pats and locals, people younger than me, and a little bit older, so I’ll try and cook up a playlist that mixes up the genres enough to be to everyone’s agreement. I suspect a little Happy Hardcore & Scouse House will still slip through though. If people don’t think it is enough of a compromise, I’ll play the birthday boy card 😉
Jan 13 2012
Right Tool For The Job
Almost four weeks since this blog had a “proper” post on it. Since Christmas, New Year and Amsterdam all took my focus away from the blog, I tried to tweet photos or updates occasionally to keep some fresh content coming in. Anyway, back home now, though in a month or so we will all be moving back to Astana. I will try and post up the rest of Anna’s photos from last year, and also some info/pictures from the recent Amsterdam trip as soon as I can.
Before I forget, if anyone has noticed graphical glitches in the last few months, after a few WordPress core and plugin updates, please do let me know.
Anyway, I’ll be trying to use this netbook’s keyboard more often when adding to this site, and once Anna is at most one month behind in her photos, I’ll try posting Anna and Tim pictures within a week or so of them being taken. That way Ira’s family and friends can see Tim before he gets there, and once we move back to Kazakhstan, our family and friends back in the UK can keep an eye on the children in something closer to real time 🙂
When we are in Kazakhstan, Irina has some more maternity leave available, so it will be both of us looking after Tim and Anna a little longer. One possible direction to take would be me taking on more daytime work, and finding a nanny/childminder for a few days a week. The obvious field of work would be more IT based work, as this requires virtually no preparation time (beyond my normal techy-based idle research) compared to teaching English, my main other work when in Astana. Given regulations soon to come into force in Kazakhstan, I will not be able to write about some current topics of interest, but others who aren’t based in Central Asia have been doing a good job keeping people updated with links and thoughts. When fund management jobs were recently juggled around a little, KZBlog, eurasianet.org and neweurasia.net all caught some articles worth reading.
Anyway, I have not had any voice-over work since before Anna was born, and although there are definitely a lot more students who want extra lessons, the time spent preparing for each one can sometimes double time away from Anna (and now Tim). Fixing computers, installing new set ups and recovering from digital disasters also don’t require me to pay special attention to the (English) vocabulary spilling out of my mouth, lest I should pass on any bad habits to locals wanting to use English for academic or job related reasons! I just have to hope we can get a GPS sorted for our Kazakh car, as trying to find streets can take a long time in Astana, not only do you have the near gridlock achieved when traffic lights are turned off in favour of manual control, but with names actually changed fairly frequently, you want to spend your time away from home working on a errant computer, not battling against the massed 4x4s around the city!
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Dec 12 2011
Zen Working
When we return back to Kazakhstan, I will need to start considering how to use my time more carefully, and try to ensure I maximize earnings along the way. When Irina goes back to work, looking after Tim and Anna at the same time is likely to be pretty knackering at first, so I’ll need to try and set aside a few hours every couple of days where I can focus on work related tasks. I probably need to start thinking about changing the physical work environment a little as well. I had wanted a little whiteboard to write tasks to do, contacts to chase up etc., but as my PC is in the living room back in Astana, this adornment would not be welcome on the wall. In the end of the living room that we’ll call my office chairs are not a problem, however trying to type from a sofa or armchair is a bit impractical.
We currently have a dinner table seat at the desk, as the original proper office chair was broken when a couple of friends decided that it could take them both at the same time! It now permanently tilts all the way back. Even I had to agree that it looked messy. Rather than throw out a mostly functioning piece of furniture, we relocated it to the living room balcony, which is where people can smoke. Once Anna was able to walk though, I no longer had use of a comfy reclining seat on the balcony though, as Anna proved very early on that she had the dexterity to lock Daddy out!
Part of the problem is that any PCs/hardware I’m attempting to fix then competes for desk space with another couple of PCs and a printer, and all sorts of odds and ends. Maybe I should set up a very narrow study/office on the balcony!
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Dec 11 2011
Went out for a pub-style meal….
Went out for a pub-style meal. £8.95 for all u can eat! http://t.co/Im1tmnsg http://t.co/aDmiMvA3 http://t.co/3s2DG9jK http://t.co/q2viHrQy
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Nov 13 2011
Tim, Anna, Ira & Gwen Driveway Clydach
Shot yesterday (12th November 2011), here we have Irina, Tim & Anna along with Gwen here at home. I’ve just noticed there seems to be a problem with the resolution, I’ll have to fiddle with some settings on the phone, sorry about that.
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Nov 13 2011
Tim, Anna, Ira &Gwen on Port Talbot Beach
Last week (the 6th of November 2011), we all went for a quick drive over to Port Talbot beach, as the weather was very warm and we realized we hadn’t been by the sea for a while…
After a long walk with Tim and Gwen up to the end of the beach and back, we decided that some fish and chips had been earned. Anna was on her best behaviour, I’m really glad we made it out.
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Nov 06 2011
Port Talbot beach (as it is a …
Port Talbot beach (as it is a lovely sunny day in South Wales!) http://t.co/8DIi3HKy http://t.co/0ZWQ6Dg2 http://t.co/CXMyVjx5
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Oct 29 2011
Recent Videos
I have given up on using PockeTwit to post videos with this blog. Although the auto-uploading to YouTube and the posterous interface itself is mostly great, the video recording resolution is limited far too low. As the program’s author obviously has issues facing bigger groups to sort, I’ve switched to uploading directly to YouTube. So videos should now be a better quality, but there could be a delay before it appears on this site.
First we have Anna, Ira, Lolyk 2 (this was shot before Tim was born, so he was called Cedric or Lyolik 2 as a place holder name) & Gwen walking in the sun to a local play area.
Swansea Beach, again before Tim had been born.
A few days after Tim was born, Anna and I went outside so she could play with her bubble blowing machine.
Nick, Anna, Jack, Ira & Gwen this morning in Clydach. Roz wasn’t in the room, and I think Tim was asleep at the time.
Right, there are more photos and videos to come, but I still need to complete a few other tasks first.
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Oct 29 2011
John’s Photos – Tim’s First Week
Just a quick post here, for people who haven’t yet ventured over to CeltPhotographic.com or seen them on facebook yet…
First we have Anna proudly displaying her World’s Best Big Sister t-shirt
Then we have a few from when Tim was still yet to arrive, and Irina looking great 🙂
Now we have one of Anna, then a few of our family together…
Finally, we have some of just Tim…
OK, next I’ll find those YouTube videos that are waiting to be embedded.
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